Dust-covered memories

Tuesday

Nov 27, 2012 at 12:01 AM

The ferociousness of the Dust Bowl never seemed as real as it did in Ken Burns' two-part documentary that aired on PBS last week. Grownups who'd lived through those devastating days as children spoke of the dust stinging their bare skin and for one man, killing his beloved baby sister with "dust pneumonia."

The ferociousness of the Dust Bowl never seemed as real as it did in Ken Burns' two-part documentary that aired on PBS last week. Grownups who'd lived through those devastating days as children spoke of the dust stinging their bare skin and for one man, killing his beloved baby sister with "dust pneumonia."

For Lodi's Betsie Grimes, "It was like my life story."

When she was 6, Grimes and her family joined the migration to California, leaving parched, wind-blown Plainview, Texas for California and its promise of jobs and prosperity.

"I recognized the old cars," Grimes said after watching the second half of the documentary. "We left Texas destitute in one of those old cars, with everything we owned on it."

They'd endured their share of dust storms before heading west.

"I remember the sand storms," Grimes, 80, said. "We didn't know what to call it at the time. I remember stuffing rags around the windows and we'd go to the cellar as fast we could when we saw the clouds coming. I remember my dad and my uncle putting the mattress up against the cellar door to try to keep the dust out.

"The fun thing was when we'd come out of the cellar. The dirt was so thick on tables and beds, you'd write and make pictures in the sand."

The sand provided no amusement for her parents, Harold and Viola Smith, who'd eloped at 17 and 16, respectively. Harold Smith was a farm worker, but one farm after another failed, and he traveled to Oklahoma and back in search of work, but found nothing to sustain his growing family.

Not long after Grimes' baby sister, Wanda, was born in 1937, the family headed west. Her aunt and uncle joined them.

"You'd take jobs along the way to pay for gas to get you to the next stop," Grimes remembered.

Her memories are hazy, those of a child.

"I never remember being unhappy, because I had great parents," she said.

They were proud, hard-working people, lured to California by the false promise of jobs galore. Reaching the Golden State after brief stops in New Mexico and Arizona was memorable, even for a 6-year-old.

Their faith helped the family through the tough days they'd left behind and those that were to come. They, like other migrants who'd escaped the barren plains, were not wanted in California. The family camped out in a tent and found work where they could. Migrant camps were dirty and unsafe, Grimes said. Her mom preferred sleeping out under the stars.

Grimes' parents found their first work pulling carrots in the Imperial Valley and eventually made their way up the San Joaquin Valley picking every kind of fruit grown. She helped, too, from pulling carrots to climbing to the top of cherry trees at harvest time.

One time, though, her mom was prepared to steal food from a local Safeway store. Instead, she ran into a woman she'd met at one of the family's many stops along the way, and that woman gave Grimes' mother some money as well as groceries from her own cupboard.

What little migrant families had, they shared with others.

Within a few years, after a long stretch camping under walnut trees in Linden, Grimes' family moved into a house on Woodbridge Road.

"My dad had gotten a job in the grape fields," she said. "We had money and some relatives came and lived with us. On Thanksgiving day we had a turkey. The war had just started and my mom said, 'We have so much, we have to share.' So my dad went uptown and brought back four servicemen. I never even got their names. My mom just said, 'You go find some servicemen,' and they came for the day. It was our Okie family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and four soldiers."

Grimes uses the word Okie with pride. She's never been ashamed of her heritage. She shouldn't be.

Those immigrants suffered heartbreaking losses of their homes and livelihoods and came here looking for work, only to be treated with disdain. Grimes attended 29 different schools, eight in 1940 alone according to the memoirs her mother wrote. The Smiths understood the importance of a good education.

That education didn't matter was just one misconception about the Dust Bowl migrants. They were considered dirty and ignorant. They were dirty. They had little access to baths and showers, or even clean water at times. Many had left school early to work in support of their families, but they were not stupid and they were not lazy. They lost all they had, but many, like Grimes' parents, were too proud to take a handout from the government. Instead, they sought work to support themselves.

"You get made fun of your whole life for being an Okie," Grimes said. "When you'd go to school, the kids were cruel. The teachers were cruel, too."

She and her family endured the taunts and made a life for themselves, settling in the Lodi area. Grimes and her sister graduated from Lodi High School, and Grimes went to secretarial school before attending Biola Bible College and becoming a nurse. It was a position she held for 45 years.

A child born in the Dust Bowl, who knew tough times and cruelty before she was 10 years old, much less a teenager, devoted herself to caring for others.

That's part of Harold and Viola Smith's legacy, but only a piece of it. The other is the life they made for themselves, in a state that didn't want them, devoid of bitterness.

"It was a great life. They were always glad they came to California," Grimes said. "They understood the prejudice. You understand that you don't belong. You're always an outsider. You never belong. If you had food on the table, though, it doesn't matter."